1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a steering wheel assembly comprising a centrally-located steering pad which houses an airbag module having an airbag adapted to be inflated during a vehicle collision. More specifically, the present invention relates to a steering wheel assembly comprising a centrally-located steering pad which houses an airbag module and includes a peripheral segment adapted to be forcibly displaced by an airbag during inflation and a central segment adapted to be kept in its fixed state even during the inflation of the airbag.
2. Description of the Related Art
Late years, in vehicles, such as automobiles, one type where an airbag module adapted to inflate an airbag during a vehicle collision so as to protect a driver from a secondary collision is housed in a steering pad of a steering wheel assembly has been increasingly prevalent. For instance, in this steering wheel assembly with an airbag module, a steering pad is designed to have a driver-facing wall (a wall facing a driver seated in a driver's seat) which includes a peripheral segment adapted to be forcibly displaced by an airbag during inflation, and a central segment adapted to be kept in its fixed state even during the inflation of the airbag and provided with an ornamental member and various types of manual operation sections.
US Patent Publication No. 2002/135163 discloses a steering wheel assembly equipped with a so-called doughnut-shaped airbag module, in which an airbag is inflated toward a driver's seat during a vehicle collision while forcibly displacing a peripheral segment of a steering pad and leaving behind a central segment of the steering pad. In the steering wheel assembly, a touch panel serving as a manual operation section for manually controlling an in-vehicle device is mounted on the central stationary segment of the steering pad adapted to be kept in its fixed state even during inflation of the airbag, in such a manner as to largely protrude from a driver-facing wall surface of the steering pad, so that a driver can touch the touch panel to variously control the in-vehicle device.
In the steering wheel assembly disclosed in the above patent publication, a manual operation section is made up of the touch panel. Thus, during operation of the manual operation section, a passenger is required to check respective positions of plural touch switches (fields) in a screen image displayed on the touch panel. Moreover, the screen image is displayed in various patterns, i.e., respective positions of the touch switches (fields) are variously changed, depending stages of a series of touch operations, and therefore the passenger has to look down at the touch panel for each of the touch operations. When the passenger moves his/her glance to the steering wheel in the above manner, he/she hardly recognize outside environments. On the other hand, if the passenger sufficiently pays attention to outside environments, he/she will hardly recognize the touch switch positions to cause a problem about deterioration in operational performance of the manual operation section.
In view of the above circumstances, it is an object of the present invention to provide a steering wheel assembly with an airbag module, capable of achieving enhanced operational performance of a manual operation section for manually controlling an in-vehicle device while suppressing damages of the manual operation section and reducing driver's uncomfortable feeling.